That Night in J Dormitory
by TomFoolery
Summary: The Starfleet Academy billeting office tries so hard to accommodate students from diverse backgrounds, but sometimes they really miss the mark. The story of how Orion pheromones, Caitian catnip, Cardassian paranoia, Klingon mating rituals, and Nausicaan wrath burned down J dormitory.
1. Commander Mulcahy's Report

Lieutenant Commander Mulcahy stared at the final version of the report, struggling to figure out how to wrap his mind around the story. It shouldn't have been that hard—he'd written the damn thing. Sometimes the truth was stranger than fiction. He skimmed over each cadet's statement, unsure whether he should laugh or fear for the future of the Federation.

The twelve new recruits had only lived together for thirteen hours—how could it have gone so bad so fast? Three cadets were hospitalized—four, if he included Cadet Selak—and there was so much fire damage to the third floor of J dormitory that structural engineers had advised demolishing the entire building.

Starfleet Academy was due to begin a new session on Monday and Starfleet and Federation officials had spent the past few weeks boasting to any media outlet who would listen that it was the most diverse group of cadets in the institution's history. For the first time, the Academy was hosting a Klingon exchange student for one year and had also admitted its first cadets with Cardassian and Nausicaan heritage. A very diverse student body indeed. From what Commander Mulcahy was reading in his report, maximally integrated dormitories were great in theory but had the potential to go very wrong without taking the time to properly consider major differences in cultural practices and behaviors.

What had the billeting office been _thinking_ , assigning these twelve cadets to live in such close proximity? Cultural sensitivity and awareness training was mandatory for all first year students, but classes hadn't started yet and even then, the classes could only do so much.

It was always a pretty steep learning curve for many of the new cadets. While some had grown up in ethnically diverse environments, most of them would meet more aliens on their first day at the Academy than they'd met in their entire lives. Usually by the end of the first term, the new cadets had either figured out a way to get along or they'd been weeded out for failure to adapt to Starfleet's inclusivity principles. But it almost seemed like these twelve misfits had been set up for failure. The billeting office had just tossed a dozen people from wildly different backgrounds onto the same dormitory floor and decided to hope for the best, apparently.

They may have _hoped_ for the best, but what they'd gotten was the worst. No, maybe not the _worst_ , Mulcahy decided. No one had _died_ , so there was that. But as he skimmed his report, he couldn't help but wonder why anyone thought a first-year Klingon and Orion would make good roommates. Or a Vulcan and Caitain. Or a Tellarite and Nausicaan. Reading the final roster from the billeting office almost made him think someone was performing a social experiment. Maybe he should contact the psychology department and ask.

More than likely, the billeting office had put an incredible amount of thought into assigning rooms to the hundreds of other incoming cadets, but by the time they got to the hard-to-place and categorize students, they had gotten lazy and just lumped them together on the third floor of J dormitory. He knew the billeting office did their best for the most part—they had a special dormitory set aside for cadets who were under the age of consent for their respective species and other dormitories set aside for species with unusual sleeping habits or living conditions. But this… this was just a ticking time bomb.

He read the room assignment roster more carefully and started laughing. It was funny because it was so _un_ -funny.

 **J Dormitory – 3** **rd** **Floor  
Room 301  
**Korla – Klingon female – age 23  
Jila – Orion female – age 19

 **Room 302  
** Dur Ah'jan – Xyrillian female – age 31  
Ghemma Hahn – Betazoid female – age 18

 **Room 303  
** Nelana Kim – Cardassian/human female – age 20  
Nek'than Mila – Andorian female – age 22

 **Room 304  
** Selak – Vulcan male – age 50  
Garess – Caitain male – age 22

 **Room 305  
** Raldon – Bolian male – age 29  
Thomas Duncan – human male – age 22

 **Room 306  
** Melas – Tellarite male – age 18  
Naaro Jones – Nausicaan/human male – age 38

He carefully read the cadets' statements again, trying to pinpoint the exact moment things had gone south. From what he could gather, it had all started with Cadet Jila, the Orion. Her statement was short but informative.

 _"It was right after dinner and I saw a cute human boy leaving the cafeteria. I talked to him. That's not a crime, is it? Ok, so sometimes I have a hard time controlling certain aspects of my body. It's not my fault. How was I supposed to know my pheromones would make my Klingon roommate start throwing things at that Vulcan guy? Seriously, why would anyone think throwing a desk at someone would make them like you? My point is, I never meant for any of this to happen…"_


	2. Don't Touch the Pickled Gagh in Room 301

**Summary of report (toxicology)  
Starfleet Academy Medical Laboratory  
Stardate 2265.50  
Time 0128 hours  
Commander Joseph Anders, M.D.**

 _There were elevated levels of lysergic triethylamide (LTA), a secreted Orion sex hormone, found in the blood of the eleven patients. For most species, this compound produces various psychological effecting including but not limited to: amorous feelings, delusions of grandeur, aggression, memory loss, sleep disturbances, and a loss of appetite among biological males and headaches, irritability, and increased appetite in biological females. It is known that this compound has no effect on Vulcanoid species, but there is nothing in the literature about its effects on Cardassian and Nausicaan physiology. There is some evidence to believe LTA may affect the biochemistry of these species in atypical ways, though further research is needed owing to these patients' hybrid physiologies._

 _The female Cardassian/human hybrid (age 21) had the second highest levels of LTA in her blood at 88 μg/L. The patient is still sedated, but others report she seemed to be experiencing hallucinations and exhibiting symptoms of intense paranoia, despite no medical history of schizoaffective conditions. The male Nausicaan/human hybrid (age 38) had moderate levels of LTA in his blood at 37 μg/L. He doesn't report experiencing any of the usual symptoms associated with this compound, but states that he experienced feelings of profound rage and found it difficult to suppress homicidal urges._

 _The Klingon female (age 23) had the highest levels of LTA in her blood at 119 μg/L. This compound appears to have affected her in much the same way it affects males of other species. Klingon neurochemistry is unique and highly complex and it appears this compound may work as an analog to a group of Klingon hormones involved in both the acute stress response and sexual response irrespective of gender._

 _Limited research suggests that excretion of LTA by Orion females is an entirely voluntary response vital to procuring a mate, but there is some evidence to suggest that during periods of extreme duress, this compound may be excreted involuntarily, perhaps as part of an innate defense mechanism…_

* * *

 **Jila's Story**

Jila was beautiful. Not because she was Orion and Orion pheromones had a funny way of making men do funny things, but because her face truly possessed the proportions that most humanoid species would call attractive. Where most Orion women had black hair, hers was the color of burnished copper and she took the time each day to brush oil through it to give it an incredible shine.

It was her first day at Starfleet Academy. She'd found her room, set her things on the bed by the window, and made her way downstairs to find the cafeteria. The food was bland and miserable, which made her feel bland and miserable too. She glanced down at the stiff red uniform and pouted. Everything about Starfleet was drab—her sparse room, her uniform, the uninspired architecture. It was like these people thought imagination was a crime.

Starfleet Academy had never been her first choice, but Jila didn't have any _first_ choices. It had either been this, take several husbands and assume her role in the family trading business, or stay in that commune with her mother and nine sisters and all those other women, constantly squabbling and gossiping and manipulating. Even though she had no particular interest in the field, she'd often been told she had an unusual talent for mathematics, and so it had been her ticket out of a provincial life of female bickering and power struggles.

It was a common misconception that Orion women were slaves. The truth was closer to the other way around, but Orions were content with letting outsiders believe what they wanted. For whatever ridiculous reason, most other species seemed to assume males were the naturally dominant gender. Orion society however was strictly matrilineal and men were by and large subservient to women, but Jila had never really understood why.

Her whole life she'd been told men were too aggressive and that they thought only of pleasure and therefore were unfit to lead, but she had no idea how much truth there was to that. Like many Orion girls, Jila had grown up cloistered in a community of female relatives. Prior to leaving the planet, the only men she'd ever met were her father, uncles, and cousins when they could come to the commune with offerings and several months later, babies would follow, with the boys being taken away after they'd been weaned.

It seemed to her that plenty of species got along just fine allowing men to have some autonomy over their lives. Starfleet let men be captains and admirals after all, and somehow the universe still existed. So it was almost no wonder when the Starfleet recruiting officer had visited the compound, Jila had been curious. It had been a human woman named Lieutenant Jessik and she'd explained to Jila that there were currently nine Orions, all female, serving in Starfleet and she could too, so long as she could pass the entrance exam.

Her mother had told her she would hate the service and would be home within a week. After her first day on the Academy campus, Jila was almost ready to concede defeat. She felt fully prepared to make that dreaded call home and listen to her mother say, "I told you so" when she spotted the human man with the lovely olive skin and midnight dark eyes leaving the cafeteria. Maybe she was being too hasty. She lengthened her stride and caught him just as he was walking through the door.

She'd encountered plenty of men since leaving the commune three days ago and her instincts had proven right… _mostly_. Men seemed to be an ok bunch. They didn't _all_ seem to be simple-minded creatures or slaves to their lustful biology as everyone had always said. Some of them were funny. Some of them were kind. Some of them were really smart and well educated. A Denobulan officer had shown her where J Dormitory was and they had chatted about famous Orion epic poetry on their walk.

This male was different: this male was beautiful. When he held the cafeteria door for her and smiled, her heart started thumping wildly in her chest.

"Hey there, I'm Shiro," he grinned. "You a first year student?"

Her breath caught in her throat and she gave a tiny nod. Orion women tended to be assertive and aggressive, but being the youngest of nine girls had made Jila more shy than most. "I'm uh, I'm Jila."

"That's a nice name," he replied. Her heart beat faster. "I'm in my third year of studying xenosociology. What's your area of concentration?"

"M-m-mathematics."

"Wow, you must be really smart," he mumbled, stopping on the sidewalk to face her.

She uttered a high-pitched giggle and that was all she learned about dear Shiro. His eyes suddenly glazed over and soon he couldn't remember how old he was or even _where_ he was. Though she'd never actually attempted to seduce a male before, she knew exactly what had happened: she'd unintentionally flooded his brain with chemical signals.

Jila was horrified. She was young and didn't have a lot of experience in controlling her pheromones, especially around handsome men, and keeping her pheromones in check was a condition of attending Starfleet Academy. What was she going to do?

Shiro smiled and muttered, "You're _so_ pretty."

Not knowing what else to do, Jila turned on her heel and sprinted back in the direction of her dorm, wondering if it was possible to die from mortification. When she reached her room, she received the shock of her life and it came in the form of Korla.

Korla was Klingon. Korla was tall. Korla was _so_ tall in fact that she belonged squarely in the freak category. Her height must have easily breached two meters; Jila figured she had to stoop to get through the doorway. Jila had set her things up on the right side of the room but her belongings now lay in a pile by the lavatory. After an awkward round of introductions, she managed to work up the courage to enter their shared space.

"So I see you already made yourself at home," Jila stammered. "That bed is a good choice. Right next to the window."

"Yes," Korla barked.

Jila muttered, " _Which was why I put my stuff there it but it's fine_."

"I did not hear you, Orion called Jila,"

"Don't worry about it. I- I talk to myself," Jila mumbled, taking a seat on the bed in the corner where Korla had unceremoniously dumped her things.

"This bed is too soft," Korla huffed, shoving the mattress to the side to reveal the hard box spring underneath. "I will grow weak sleeping on such luxurious bedding."

Jila stood and started to make her new bed, wondering if this was all some kind of joke. If she had to be roommates with this barbarian for the next year, she was going to go crazy… that was if she even survived at all. Thoughts of calling her mother crept back into her mind.

When she'd finished smoothing out her comforter, she sat down on her bed, took a deep breath, and studied a stack of jars on the nightstand. They were full of pinkish purple liquid and something that looked like strings or noodles. She picked one up and asked, "Is this some kind of art project?"

The moment she spoke, she realized they weren't noodles at all but were some kind of worms or snakes. She shrieked and tried to put the jar back on the nightstand, but it slipped out of her hands and crashed to the floor, splattering foul-smelling broth and dead serpentine monsters everywhere.

"That is pickled gagh my mother made for me!" Korla roared, leaping over the bed in a single bound to grab Jila by the throat. "You will not touch it!"

Time slowed as Korla's large and powerful hands cut off her airway. She started to apologize and beg for her life, but nothing seemed capable of taming Korla's wrath.

* * *

 **Korla's Story**

Korla was making her bed and was disappointed to find it so unsuitable. The mattress was so soft; just like the Federation. Starfleet officers slept on beds made for infants and the elderly. Even though it was a terrible bed, it was the first bed she had never had to fight for.

There had been things on this bed when she'd moved in but the room had been unoccupied, so she had shoved all the clutter to the floor by the latrine. The housing officer had told her she would have a roommate and had refused to listen to Korla's demands for private quarters. He had cowered like a runt targ, but he had held firm. Korla would have to share her space with another person.

She had been looking forward to having her own room; having a private room was a mark of great distinction for someone so young.

Klingon children slept in packs, a tradition designed to teach them about hierarchy and asserting dominance and finding allies from a young age. From the time they could walk and talk until they completed the First Rite of Ascension, children of Great Houses were relegated to a sleeping on hard stone floors in a basement or cupboard—the older and stronger children would take the warmest, most comfortable spots by the air vents while the younger, weaker children were forced to sleep huddled together in the corner. Once a child grew strong enough, brave enough, or clever enough to form an alliance with their weaker peers, they could challenge their older siblings or cousins for better sleeping arrangements.

Korla had once dislocated her shoulder sparring with her elder sister for a warm spot on the wall nearest the kitchen. Korla had been seven, K'hel had been thirteen. Korla had broken her sister's ribs and was preparing to break one of her arms when her mother had told them to end the fight—beds were not worth maiming or killing for.

Korla had always been big, not just for a female, but for _anyone_. She was the youngest of Gardok's brood, but by age sixteen, she was the tallest, strongest, and smartest of all her siblings. She bested her brothers not only in hand-to-hand combat and ranged weapons, but also in more general battle tactics and negotiation skills.

After the First Rite of Ascension, all young Klingons began training to learn the arts of the warrior and slept in crowded barracks. There were beds, but not enough for everyone, and Korla had once again found herself forced to fight for a place to sleep. For ten years she had fought and studied and learned the ways of her people. It had been easy: she was both a natural fighter and leader.

Her father, Gardok, had often mourned that she'd been born female and last of all his children. Klingons honored their daughters as well as their sons but they honored their sons _more_. As a woman, she could not serve on the High Council, command a fleet, or own significant property in her own right. Houses only passed to females in exceptional circumstances and her three brothers and nineteen male cousins would have to die before she would be eligible. Klingons loved honor and were good at dying, but not good enough for Korla to imagine she would ever have the opportunity to achieve true greatness.

And she'd never felt further away from greatness than she did right now. The Klingon Empire was on the verge of returning to its former glory. After nearly a century of struggling to modernize their forces and overcome the effects of a devastating genetic engineering experiment, the Empire had finally become a force to be reckoned with once again.

And what did the High Council want to do with it? Make _peace_ with the Federation. She understood their reasoning was tactical—it was much better to fight a war one enemy at a time and for now, the Empire was focused on eradicating the Romulan threat and so a temporary alliance with the Federation was necessary.

As part of a "show of goodwill," the High Council had agreed to send one of its brightest young warriors to attend Starfleet Academy for one year. The Council had proposed her brother Klaag, who was her father's second son. Gardok had refused, claiming Klaag was at a pivotal moment in a rising career within the Imperial Fleet, so he had offered Korla instead.

Korla had just finished her Second Rite of Ascension and had been poised to become weapons officer of the _Go'roth_. Because of the limitations of her gender, her best chance to bring honor to her family would be to achieve command of her own ship, but it didn't matter to Gardok that his youngest daughter had a rising career of her own. She had been so angry, but she couldn't refuse his order—to do so would bring dishonor.

The night before she'd left to come to this pampered place, she had expressed her fury and displeasure about Gardok's decision to her mother. Her mother had explained that there were many ways to make the Empire great and what the Council needed in her was not only a great warrior, but also a great ambassador. She told Korla that her father had not wanted to send her because he knew Korla's heart loved battle, but of all the young warriors in all the Great Houses, he had believed she would be best suited to represent the High Council and bring honor to her name, her family, and the Empire.

Korla had never felt like her mother had understood her because she had always taken a more active interest in the lives of her siblings, and when she expressed her disappointment over this, her mother had simply replied, "I never helped you because you never needed it and even if you did, you would have never accepted it. You have always made your own way." Her mother had left her alone to finish packing her belongings and that was the last time they'd spoken.

Korla had been angry that her mother hadn't come to see her off, but she had found several jars of pickled gagh hidden among her things. Most Klingons preferred to eat it live, but Korla had always secretly despised the feeling of the serpents wriggling down her throat. She couldn't remember telling her mother that her tart pickled gagh was her favorite snack but somehow, she had known. There had been a note with the jars written in her mother's hand that simply read, "You honor me by being my daughter. I am proud."

She stared at the six jars of gagh on the low table by the bed and felt lonely. She was ashamed of her momentary weakness and uttered a low, frustrated growl.

"Uh, hello," muttered a squeaky voice from behind her.

Korla turned to see a tiny Orion girl with hair the color of dried blood shuffling her feet in the doorway. She growled again. Orions were dishonorable pirates and thieves, smugglers and mercenaries. What was _this_ one doing here?

"Hi, uh, I'm Jila," the Orion said. "This is my room. Are you my roommate?"

Korla flashed her teeth in a threatening snarl. She was expected to share a space with this Orion _p'tahk_? Suddenly a year had never seemed so long. Korla narrowed her eyes and was in the middle of debating what she might do if the Orion attempted to steal from her when she remembered her mother's words—the Empire wanted an ambassador as well as a warrior. Cutting off this green girl's hand would be poor diplomacy even for a Klingon.

The girl stepped into the room, hugging the wall to keep maximum distance between them, and twittered, "What's your name?"

"I am Korla, Daughter of Gardok."

"That's a nice name."

Korla sneered and grunted. The girl, Jila, sat down on the other bed and began mumbling something to herself, leaving Korla to wonder if she was in her right mind. What a weak creature. Korla shoved the soft mattress off the bed to reveal the firmer base below and studied the result. This would have to do.

The Orion girl picked up the things off the floor by the latrine and started making the other bed. Korla marveled at her cowardice. She had dumped this girl's property on the floor and the Orion had said _nothing_ to her, she had simply allowed the insult to pass. If she would not fight for the better bed, she was unworthy of it.

Korla opened the last crate of her belongings and started considering where on the wall she would hang her bat'leth when the girl whispered, "Is this some kind of art project?"

She turned to see the girl clutching one of her jars of pickled gagh, the gagh her mother had made. The Orion shrieked and it fell from her slender hands to the floor, shattering the glass.

"That is pickled gagh my mother made for me! You will not touch it!"

Within seconds she had the Orion girl by the throat. She no longer cared about diplomacy; this girl had destroyed her property. Not just any property: her mother's pickled gagh. She wrapped her fingers around her fragile green neck, feeling like a slave to her fury. But then… she felt relaxed. _Very_ relaxed. _Serene_ , even. A sweet smell hung in the air, mixing with the acrid odor of the pink vinegar splattered on the tile.

The girl slipped out of her grip and fell backward onto her bed, crying and clutching her throat as she gasped for air. Korla shook her head, wondering why she had grabbed her in the first place. She couldn't remember. Why couldn't she remember?

She took a step backward, her boots crunching on broken glass. Oh _right_ , the pickled gagh. She should be upset about the Orion's lack of respect for her belongings, but she wasn't. She did feel _something_ , but she couldn't explain what. It was euphoria and desire mingled with excitement and longing. She uttered an involuntary purr.

"Wh-what is _wrong_ with you?" Jila choked. "Why- I didn't mean- I'm sorry."

Korla closed her eyes, shook her head again, and started stumbling toward the hallway, driven almost by pure instinct. She hit the door release and wandered across the threshold. There he was.

He was tall—not as tall as her, but few people were—and possessed shiny dark hair and pointed ears. A _Vulcan_. They were the superior ancestors of the Romulan dogs. Vulcans were a clever and honorable species who would have made excellent adversaries if they were ever inclined to war. They were strong and powerful and this one had a full chest and long arms. His forehead was awkwardly smooth, but she didn't mind. It was almost _endearing_. Korla's lips pulled away from her teeth into a smile.

"Uh, hi there," said a voice.

There was a feeble human standing next to the Vulcan and she hadn't even noticed until he'd spoken. "I'm- I'm Tom. This is Selak."

The Vulcan raised his hand, made a strange gesture, and said, "Live long and prosper."

Tom started to prattle on about room numbers and specialties, but Korla wasn't listening. She couldn't exactly explain _why_ she did what she did next, but she knew _what_ she was doing.

She took a step back into her room, pulled one of the metal drawers from the dresser by the entry, and hurled it with all her might at the Vulcan called Selak. He had quick reflexes and artfully ducked just as the drawer sailed through the space where his head had been, leaving a triangular shaped hole in the wall behind him. Korla threw her head back and roared: the mating rituals had begun.

" _What the hell are you doing_?" Tom screamed.

Selak said nothing, he merely raised an eyebrow and started walking backwards, _slowly_ , never taking his eyes off Korla. Doors along the hallway began to spring open and heads of all species popped out of them.

The Vulcan was supposed to be singing and reciting love poetry, why did he remain silent? Perhaps her display had been insufficient to get his attention.

She ducked into her room again and grabbed a lamp from the top of the dresser, barely registering that Jila was standing between their beds with her mouth hanging open. When Korla returned to the hallway and wound her arm back to lob the lamp at the object of her affection, doors started slamming shut and the Vulcan and human turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, disappearing into different rooms on the other side of the hall.

Korla howled again and strode down the hall with confidence. The Vulcan preferred to be wooed apparently, so she would woo him.


	3. The Smoke and Sand Gophers in Room 304

**Summary of report (chemical analysis)  
Report No. 2265-50-10-535  
Starfleet Academy Medical Laboratory  
Stardate 2265.50  
Time 0451 hours  
Lieutenant Angela Ashe**

 _Starfleet Academy Security provided a sample of an unknown substance collected from the scene of a fire earlier this evening in J Dormitory. The substance appeared to be dried herbs and was seized from a Caitian cadet who claims it is from a native Caitian plant called kra'shaa. Security officers suspect the substance may produce psychoactive effects and have delivered a sample to our laboratory for testing._

 _The results from nuclear spectroscopy produced two chemicals of interest,_ _nepetalactone, the active ingredient in common catnip, and 1-methylpsilocin, a serotonergic psychedelic tryptamine derivative. While Starfleet doesn't classify either compound as a controlled substance, these chemicals are heavily regulated on several Federation planets owing to their effects on some species._

 _Nepetalactone is a schedule I substance on both Bolarus IX and Andoria because it acts as a potent hallucinogen and stimulant in Bolians and Andorians…_

* * *

 **Selak's Story**

The Klingon woman had thrown a drawer directly at his head. Why? What offense could he have given by simply showing her the ta'al and uttering, "Live long and prosper" in Standard English? He reviewed his conduct, unable to discern any grave breech of etiquette or decorum. Of course, he only understood Klingon culture in the broadest sense: they were warriors and followed honor in much the same way his people honored logic. Had it been something in the gesture or in his posture? There was a loud simultaneous thump and crash against the door. Had she thrown another object?

"What is all this hideous fuss?" growled his roommate, a Caitian named Garess. His tongue had an unusual way of accentuating the _s_ sounds at the end of his sentence.

"A Klingon female threw a piece of furniture at me."

Garess sat up and arched his flexible cat-like spine. "Why?"

"I am uncertain," Selak replied.

Garess hissed and licked his lips. "I would have preferred a quiet evening."

Selak agreed. He sensed he should report this assault to someone, but perhaps it would be more prudent to attempt to resolve the matter with her privately rather than involve the authorities. It was logical to conclude cultural misunderstandings would be pervasive in such a diverse place as Starfleet Academy and he was not prepared to make an enemy if he did not have to.

He opened the door and caught sight of the remains of a lamp crumpled in the hallway with a dent in the metal doorframe where it had struck. The door at the far end, the Klingon's room, was open and he could hear the woman growling and roaring amidst another woman's pleas for her to calm down.

This did not appear to be an ideal time to attempt to understand what had transpired between them. It was far more logical to wait for her temper to subside, assuming that it even would. He closed the door to his room and determined meditation was in order.

"Make up your mind; are you going out or staying in?" Garess moaned.

"I intend to remain in the room."

The Caitian's eyes narrowed and he shrugged, slumping back onto his bed. He pulled a cardboard box onto his stomach, extracted a small rodent, and held it up by its tail, examining the creature. What he did next horrified Selak.

He ate it headfirst. The disturbing imagery had the effect of heightening Selak's other senses. He could acutely hear the crunching of the animal's bones and last frightened squeal before the Caitian swallowed it. Selak tasted bile in the back of his throat. Despite decades of practice in controlling his emotions, he could not immediately tamp the swell of disgust and sadness he felt in the wake of having witnessed such a grisly scene.

"What are you staring at, Vulcan?"

"You consumed that animal alive."

"So? They're better when the blood is warm."

Selak wasn't certain how to respond. Most Vulcans were strict vegetarians, with many Vulcans refusing to even eat any products made from animals or synthetic animal flesh made from food replicators. He understood his people were an exception among most Federation cultures but he had presumed that most societies had at least switched to entirely replicated meat to avoid unnecessary animal suffering.

"I take it your people don't eat sand gophers."

"We do not."

"I _would_ offer to let you try one of mine, but I'm hungry and these things are hard to come by. Besides, I don't _want_ to."

He'd only met the Caitian an hour before, but from the moment the introductions had been made, Selak had gotten the distinct impression Garess did not like him. The more time he spent in his company, the more Selak was beginning to believe that his roommate didn't care for anyone but himself.

Garess trained his yellow eyes on Selak, grinned, and removed another wriggling rodent from the box. Selak reflexively recoiled, not out of fear of the animal, but from anticipating what was to become of it. The supreme Vulcan principle of Kol-ut-shan, loosely translated by off-worlders as infinite diversity in infinite combinations, was at its core a celebration of the vast array of variables in the universe, and that included the differences among cultures.

It was not for him to judge what was morally acceptable—there was no universal moral truth, after all—but he also had no desire to watch his roommate consume an innocent, living creature, regardless of his nutritional requirements, innate predatory instincts, or cultural norms regarding such things.

Garess slowly twirled the squeaking animal by its stubby, hairless tail, smiling as he watched it squirm in vain against his grip. He swung it back and forth, licking it with his tongue when it came within range.

"I would prefer you did not torture animals in our shared space," Selak said, looking away, unable to watch the spectacle any longer.

"And I would prefer you mind your own business," Garess hissed. "If you don't like it, don't watch."

"The dormitory policy prohibits pets."

"They're not _pets_ , Vulcan, they're dinner."

"It prohibits keeping any live animals in the building."

Garess' diamond-shaped pupils constricted and he plopped the gopher back into the box and flipped the lid closed, allowing the retractable claw on his index finger to stab through the cardboard. "Are you going to _tattle_ on me, Vulcan?"

Selak didn't flinch. Caitians were far smaller than Vulcans, with slender bodies and weaker muscles, but they were well known for their striking speed and agility, as well as their claws and teeth. Violence with the exception of self-defense was illogical and immoral, whether against lower lifeforms or intelligent species, and though Selak had no inclination to engage in a physical altercation with Garess, he also could not abide this kind of cruelty. Before Selak could explain his position, Garess tossed the box on the stand between then bed and gracefully flipped himself onto the floor.

The feline man slinked toward him, pausing when he was less than half a meter away to say. "I don't answer to you, Vulcan."

"But you do answer to Starfleet officials, and they have instituted a policy that you are violating."

Either Garess didn't hear him or didn't care. He pulled a small pouch from a black duffel bag on the ground and sniffed it. His facial features softened into a slight grin. Selak watched him, perplexed by his sudden change in mood. The Caitian bounded back to his bed, leapt upon it, opened the pouch, inhaled deeply, and began to purr.

Selak eyed the cardboard box on the table, sensing the battle over the gophers had simply been postponed. He turned his attention back to unpacking the remainder of his belongings and found his meditation candles at the bottom of his trunk. He had not had a serious reflective period in more than ten days. Perhaps his irritation and disgust with his roommate stemmed from mental fatigue.

At home, he had been in the habit of meditating for thirty minutes following end meal. He had done many things at home on Vulcan that would no longer be practical in the Starfleet setting, but he could not forgo meditation forever. He also did not believe he could bring himself to meditate with the Caitian in the room, watching his every movement.

He sniffed one of his meditation candles and began to consider where he might locate an ideal place for private ruminations. The orange-yellow candle smelled of home. It smelled of na'na and kap-yar and… he sniffed the candle again, but realized it was not the source of the pungent odor currently assaulting his nose. He turned around and saw Garess had lit some of the pouch's contents in a small bowl and was wafting the fumes into his nose.

"What are you doing?"

"Inhaling krash."

" _Krash_?"

One of his yellow, feline eyes opened and peered at Selak. He pointed to the smoking bowl and said, "Yes. _Krash_."

"I am unfamiliar with the term."

"Kra'shaa is an herb native to my planet. It calms me."

Selak once again gazed at the cardboard box of rodents on the side table and decided he could tolerate the smell of burning kra'shaa far better than he could watch animals be eaten alive. He also supposed a calm Garess was preferable to any other incarnation of Garess he'd already encountered.

He clutched his meditation candles, turned on his heel, and made his way to the bathroom without another word. The males on the third floor occupied the right side of the hall, and the three rooms fed into a single shared bathroom opposite the main entry with three toilets, three sinks, and three sonic shower stalls.

He entered the dressing area adjacent to the showers and sat down on a bench. He closed his eyes and starting trying to relax his mind, but the middle door flung open and a Bolian man entered and marched toward the adapted urinal designed for caustic Bolian waste. There was no privacy in this place.

He waited for the Bolian to leave and locked himself in one of the showers. It was narrow, but he managed to sit down in a cross-legged position. He lit his candles, took a series of slow breaths, and allowed his mind to slide into quietude. He could not maintain his focus for long. It had nothing to do with Caitian butchery, foul-smelling herbs, or a Bolian with a full bladder. It had to do with _her_.

T'Res. His mate. The singular love of his life. She had married Sovok nearly three years ago now, but Selak could not forget her. She had left a void in his life that he could not fill. In many ways, she was the reason he found himself hiding in a sonic shower in a well-worn dormitory in San Francisco.

Selak had suffered a crisis of convictions in recent years. Deep down, he supposed he'd always wondered if emotions were really so harmful or if logic was truly the only way to master them. So many other species existed well enough with emotion. Surak's teachings posited that an emotionless society was an ideal society, but as far as Selak could tell, Vulcan society still had its share of problems, they were just different than those of more emotionally charged races.

All Vulcans felt fleeting, involuntary emotions on occasion, except those few who had completed the kolinahr. Selak had experienced a number of emotions earlier, watching Garess eat one gopher and torture another, but he had been able to subdue those distasteful feelings before he became aware of them. That was the traditional model of polite Vulcan society. It was understood and never discussed, as with most things Vulcans did. Few would ever openly admit to feeling occasional glimmers of jealousy or irritation.

Selak had never dared to admit to anyone, himself included, that he found merit in some V'tosh ka'tur principles. He doubted he could ever live entirely without logic and meditation, but he could not entirely reject emotion either. Many things were safe in moderation and he believed that extended to feeling feelings. He could see how one might grow addicted to experiencing things like joy or passion, but on the rare occasion he'd freely permitted himself to feel those things, he hadn't been irrevocably corrupted by the experience. T'Res had quickly uncovered his secret—she had been his unofficial mate and knew him better than anyone—but rather than express concern for her lover's dalliance in heretical practices, she joined him.

They were very careful to limit themselves and to conceal their actions from others. Once a month, they would meet at her home in the middle of the night and retreat into the basement to allow themselves a brief respite from constant emotional control. They would air their grievances with each other, allowing resentment and anger to surface, but also other things. They would make attempts at telling funny stories and laugh. They would hold each other. T'Res had once convinced him to dance with her. Sometimes they would mate. She was the only person in existence he felt he could trust with such a thing as the free expression of emotion, and now she was bonded to someone else, not because she cared for him, but because it was what her family had demanded of her.

A single tear ran down his cheek and his immediate instinct was to brush it away before someone saw. Who would see? Who would know? _He_ would know. But did it matter? Even conservative Vulcans appreciated the need to grieve, and T'Res would not have minded him grieving in this way for her. She was not dead, but she might as well be. Several more tears dripped from his chin and he sniffed.

He closed his eyes and slipped deeper into a meditative trance, caught between his desire to fully experience his grief and the instinct to erase it entirely. In and out he breathed, quickly becoming oblivious to the distant sounds of chaos erupting in the world beyond the sonic shower door.

* * *

 **Garess' Story**

Garess' mind was swimming through a sea of serenity. This was good krash. Sha'sa, his littermate, had given it to him as a parting gift. He would have to write her and thank her.

He needed it to take his mind off the Vulcan. Seelak or Saylock or whatever his name was. Who was _he_ to tell Garess he couldn't eat gophers in his own room? Other species were so squeamish.

He waved more smoke into his face and inhaled. His muscles relaxed and he felt light and happy. One by one, he extended and retracted the claws on his fingers, enjoying the sensation of flexing his tendons. The nails were growing too long and pointed and needed to be trimmed, or so his mother would say. He wasn't a savage, after all. She was always worried about that.

He laid back on the bed and gazed around the bleak room. The krash was muting his despondency. He hated this place. He hadn't joined Starfleet because he really wanted to, but rather as a last resort. He had to get away from Cait. He had to get away from _her_.

He had loved M'Shaa since grade school and he had always presumed she loved him too. She had kissed him once. They had been eleven years old and stalking songbirds in the tall grass behind the library. They had both ducked behind a low shrub and she'd leaned over, rubbed their whiskers together, and then licked his face. He'd asked her why, and she'd smiled and replied, "You know why." He decided right then and there at the age of eleven that he would marry her someday.

But youthful infatuation had given way to adult reality. M'Shaa came from a well-to-do family from the posh south side of Korra, the capital city, and Garess, along with his mother and twenty-three siblings and half siblings, hailed from the central slums. Money had always been a problem and though the government had supplemented their existence with basic food and housing, the need for assistance had always been a deep social stain.

He'd taken to hunting small birds and mammals to take the edge off occasional hunger, an act his mother despised. Hunting, eating live animals, fighting… those were shameful byproducts of a barbarian past. "Good" Caitians didn't kill things anymore. His mother had always encouraged her brood to be good kittens and not make the same mistakes she did, but several of his sisters already had litters of their own and several of his brothers had fathered litters they didn't bother to support.

His mother had her first litter, including Garess and his three littermates, when she was only seventeen. Another litter had followed a year later, followed by four more litters over the next five years numbering from two to seven kittens. None of the fathers ever stuck around long enough for Garess to remember their names. There were a lot of words reserved for people like Garess and his family, and none of them were kind. Breeders. Slummers. Yowlers.

Caitian society was kind enough to provide for its citizens when they could not provide for themselves, but "polite" Caitian society had many subtle ways of reminding them that they were barely better than criminals. He had gone to school with several other slummers and many of the other kids had made fun of him for his enormous family and funny old clothes. He'd gotten into a lot of fights, which only seemed to prove their theory that slummers were unsophisticated savages. He'd made his mother cry so many times, but he'd never stopped feeling angry toward her for putting the family in their current situation. Why couldn't she be like all the other mothers and have one small litter and be done with it?

So it had been no surprise when M'Shaa's family did their best to keep him away from their daughter, particularly when they got older. According to them, M'Shaa deserved better than some yowler from the slums. Rather than concede defeat, Garess had decided to be better. It was what his mother claimed she wanted, it was what M'Shaa supposedly needed, so it was what he did.

He'd always been a lazy student, but he worked harder in secondary school, discovering he possessed both and interest and aptitude for mathematics, and he managed to get a scholarship to a respectable university on Cait's northern continent, graduating near the top of his class in mechanical engineering. He'd worked so hard in school that he'd failed to notice he and M'Shaa spoke less often as the years passed, but he'd never doubted they loved each other.

That was until of course he'd returned home to Korra and found out she was expecting a litter with Nalass, a fellow slummer who had grown up a block away from Garess. Her family had disowned her of course. He had worked so hard to escape the rough and tumble life of the slums and she had almost gone out of her way to join it. He had done it for _her_ , but it seemed she had been willing to do anything to escape the charmed life her family had given her.

He and Nalass had come to blows over it and he now had a deep scar that ran from his ear to his jaw as a reminder of M'Shaa's betrayal. He'd worked so hard for her and when he'd lost her, he'd become lost himself. He began hanging around in his old neighborhood with his siblings and their friends. His brother and littermate got arrested for assaulting a security officer and one of his half-sisters went to prison for insurance fraud.

He had found his mother crying in the kitchen one night, and assuming she was once again fretting over the state of her massive brood, he sat down and tried to comfort her. They'd hugged for a long time and she admitted that she cried for all of her children, but she cried for Garess most of all. She had wanted to give her kittens more and had been unable to, but she had been so proud that Garess had gone out and sought more for himself. Now that he was back in Korra, she was afraid it had all been for nothing.

He told her about M'Shaa and how she had been the reason he had gone off to university in the first place. She reminded him that whatever happened, no one would ever be able to take away his education and no matter how or why he'd gotten it, it was his forever. Then she had begged him to leave, to get out of Korra before it was too late.

When the Starfleet recruiting officer had turned up at the civic center the next day as Garess waited with his youngest siblings for the weekly food distribution, he'd decided Starfleet was better than nothing. They would teach him to be an officer and send him to school for four more years to learn any advanced engineering specialty he wanted. His mother had _cried_ —she was always crying—but they had been tears of bittersweet pride. Garess hadn't looked back.

Until now. Now here he was, on Earth, ready to begin his training but still feeling so restless and adrift and alone. He had an uptight roommate with an upright haircut who couldn't _possibly_ understand what he was going through.

" _Vulcan_!"

Garess hissed and sat upright, startled by the unexpected shouting in the hall. It occurred to him that he had been dozing and unaware of his surroundings, but the yelling and violent shaking of the door snapped him back to his senses. Despite the krash, he felt both annoyed and afraid by this new development.

He was annoyed because there was someone pounding on his door, as though they were the police and he a violent criminal they'd come to arrest. He had done nothing wrong. Besides, the person was shouting for the Vulcan to come out, what had Sylack done to piss this person off so badly?

Another loud _whump_ echoed on the metal door, this time leaving a soft dent in the middle. Garess swallowed hard. His sensitive ears picked up more whispering and yelling in the hall and as he approached the now deformed door, he could hear a high-pitched voice saying, "Korla, _please_. _Stop_. What are you doing? You're breaking the door. I don't want us to get in trouble."

The banging on the door continued. Garess took a deep breath and timidly called, "Can I help you?"

"I will speak with the Vulcan!"

"Uh, he's uh… in the bathroom."

A loud roar erupted in the hallway followed by another deafening thump on the door. Another thud and then another, and then the largest woman he'd ever seen came crashing through. His claws instinctively extended and he leapt backwards onto his bed in a single bound, half crouching, prepared for a fight he consciously knew he could not win against this mammoth of a woman.

"He has not recited any poetry or come to sniff my hands!" the Klingon woman bellowed.

Garess' mouth hung open. " _Huh_?"

"He is a most worthy mate, but he will not come to me! Why?"

It took several seconds to process her words and unfortunately, his interim reaction was awkward laughter. Poetry? Hand sniffing? A worthy mate? Was this brute of a woman actually sweet on his rigid Vulcan roommate? That _couldn't_ be right.

"You laugh!" the woman roared, surging forward. It only took her two long strides to reach Garess' bed and despite him taking a swipe at her face with his claws and attempting to duck out of the way, her bulk was simply too excessive. She had blocked him in, cutting off his path of escape. Before he could react, she grabbed his neck and lifted him into the air. His claws dug into her forearms, but she was oblivious to the pain.

"Where is he? Why has he not come? _And what is this foul smoke_?"

Garess opened his mouth to try and answer, but her grip was so firm on his neck that no air could escape through his windpipe. He twisted and struggled. He had been in plenty of fights in his twenty-two years of life, but none so one-sided as this. He suddenly felt keenly aware of what it must be like to be a sand gopher. It was pure and utter terror.

She hurled him against the wall locker by the door. Blinding pain shot through his shoulder, but he was only dimly aware of it as he sucked in delicious oxygen. He stumbled to his feet, turning himself to prepare for another assault, but the Klingon had already forgotten him and was shoving her way into the bathroom. He was no longer of interest to her, and she was no longer his problem.

"Are you ok?"

Garess glanced at his right arm, which appeared to be twisted at an odd angle around the shoulder joint. It was dislocated, he was certain. He coughed and breathed heavily, suddenly noticing a sweet smell lingering in the air. He looked over his left shoulder to find a green-skinned goddess with golden lips and hair the color of the setting sun. The pain in his shoulder evaporated.

"I love you," he muttered, unsure why he would say something like that to a woman he didn't even know but certain that he did in fact love her.

"Oh _great_ ," the Orion woman said, rolling her eyes and retreating back down the hall. "Not this again."

"Come back," he begged, racing after her. "You are so beautiful."

She wasn't beautiful. Beautiful was such an inadequate word to describe a woman of her caliber. She was _everything_. "Please, just tell me your name."

She turned on her heel, locking her sapphire blue eyes onto him. "Look, you don't _really_ love me. It's pheromones making you say that. I'm so sorry Korla tried to strangle you. She just snapped. I don't know what's going on with her. I'm sorry."

He heard her words but he wasn't really listening. He was watching her graceful figure and the rhythmic movements of her lips as she spoke. " _I love you_ ," he whispered.

" _Stop saying that_!" She raced into her room and slammed the door in his face.

Garess' heart started to thump erratically. Why was she rejecting him? He loved her. He _needed_ her. A primal instinct deep within him suddenly caused him to throw his head back and yowl.

"Please go away," she begged through the door, but he could not. He continued to sing her the love songs of his ancestors, hoping it would be enough to draw her to him.

" _Shut up_!" bellowed a sharp voice from behind him. Garess ignored it and continued to howl.

"What is _wrong_ with you people?" a firm hand gripped his shoulder, causing a river of pain to shoot through his body.

Garess hissed violently and turned to see a Bolian standing over him, shaking his dislocated shoulder. He took a wild swing with the claws on his left hand, making contact with the Bolian's face and sending a shower of blue blood streaming from his cheek. The man stumbled backwards and fell to the floor, clutching his injury.

"That's it. I'm calling security," the man wailed, spitting at Garess' feet. "This is ridiculous. This is _madness_."

Garess returned to howling for his true love. He didn't care what happened now. He only cared for her, the siren with the green skin and honey-colored lips in Room 301.


	4. Narcissism and Self-Doubt in Room 305

**Psychiatric release report  
** **Report No. 2265-50-10-535  
** **Starfleet Academy Department of Xenopsychiatry and Integrated Behavioral Science  
** **Stardate 2265.50  
** **Time 0845 hours  
** **Lieutenant Sarah Lockhart**

 _The patient, a human-Cardassian hybrid, insists she doesn't know why she was been brought here. Several of her roommates report she tampered with the smoke detectors because she insisted they were a government plot to spy on innocent people, a fact that likely contributed to the spread of the fire on the third floor of the J Dormitory last night._

 _Ms. Kim insists she cannot recall performing any such actions. Scans of her neural tissue show normally developed structures and there is no evidence of any recent injury, potentially ruling out any post-traumatic amnesia. However, because so little is known of Cardassian neurology and biochemistry and there is nothing regarding human-Cardassian hybrids in the medical literature, it is difficult to make a concrete diagnosis._

 _Dr. Anders' report notes that she had extremely elevated levels of_ _lysergic triethylamide (LTA)_ _in her blood, a compound found in Orion pheromones, and his theory is it may have contributed to Ms. Kim's paranoia and hallucinations. This compound is known to have limited effects on Cardassians and humans, but nothing is known of human-Cardassian hybrids._

 _Lieutenant Ashe forwarded a report on a substance known on Cait as kra'shaa, which was found in the dormitory and appears to have had varying effects on all the occupants on the third floor. There are simply too many variables to know for certain what caused Ms. Kim's paranoia and memory loss, but for now, she appears to have fully recovered…_

* * *

 **Raldon's Story**

When Raldon thought about the series of events that had led him here, to Starfleet, to this wretched, water-covered planet, to this room with the irritatingly cheerful human man and lumpy mattress, it was enough to make him cry. His parents had finally cut him off. They'd been threatening it for years of course, but he never thought they would turn their only son out into the harsh universe with nothing but a handshake and an offer that he could come back after he'd "done something with his life."

From a young age, his mother had called him a slow-starter. His father had called him lazy. Raldon thought they were both being unreasonable. He did everything anyone ever asked of him— _eventually_ —so how could anyone call him lazy?

Sure, he'd never been employed long-term and it had taken him seven years to get through a university program that most people completed in three, but that wasn't his fault. As far as he could see, there was nothing wrong with working smarter and not harder, but every teacher or supervisor he'd ever had had disagreed with his various methodologies for getting things done. They were a bunch of unimaginative ingrates. It seemed like the whole damn universe, his parents included, hated innovation and only wanted small-minded people who followed rules and schematics and schedules.

No matter what anyone thought about his work ethic, Raldon _was_ smart. Maybe that was part of the problem. Why should he get down on his hands and knees to scrub a floor when he could simply write a computer program that coordinated the activities of all the household bots?

He recalled finding a vacuum bot in the dumpster behind his apartment block several months ago. It had taken him two whole hours to retrofit it into an indoor sweeper, but he'd been proud of his work. That bot had had the capacity to vacuum even the smallest nanoparticles and had left the floor forty percent cleaner than the best commercially available sweeper, but has his mother cared? Of _course_ not. All she could do was complain about the scuffs the wobbly wheels had left on her kitchen tile and the dents it had made in the cabinetry.

"Hey, do you think you could help me move my bed?"

Raldon snapped out of his reverie of self-pity and glared at the buck-toothed human waving at him on the left side of the room. "Why?"

"Well, I just thought I'd like to move it over closer to the window," the human explained, putting the backs of his hands on his hips.

Manual labor of any kind had never been a favorite of Raldon's, but it occurred to him that if the human—Tum or Tom or Tam or whatever his unusual, human name was—moved his bed over to the window, there would be more space in the center of the room. He made a show of getting to his feet, but obliged Tum all the same.

"Thanks, Raldon."

" _Hmmm_ ," he murmured, flopping back onto his bed to continue ruminating over his troubles.

"I can't wait to start classes, what about you?"

Raldon turned his head slowly in Tum's direction. He blinked several times, but didn't reply.

"What uh- what are you studying?" Tum asked.

"Computer engineering."

"Wow, that's impressive. You must have had test scores off the charts."

Not off the charts, exactly, but certainly better than most. "Yes."

"I'm going into logistics myself. It's what my dad does. He works at a maintenance shop in Ohio. Most people don't grow up wanting to manage supply chains, but I'm not most people…"

Raldon blinked slowly, glaring at the textured ceiling and wondering why the universe had conspired to arrange for him a roommate like Tum. He rattled on and on and reeked of the kind of optimism that made any realist's stomach turn. Raldon started to wish he could relocate the chatty man's bed into the hallway instead.

"Listen, Tum," he said, interrupting a story about how Tum used to play hokey or some strange sport that involved ice and goolies or whatever.

"It's _Tom_ , actually," he beamed. "Short for Thomas. Thomas Duncan. It's my dad's name, actually, so that makes me a junior."

"Yes, I'm sure it does," Raldon said, throwing his legs over the side of his bed and heading for the door.

"Where you going?"

"Somewhere quiet."

"Well, I'm heading to dinner. Care to join me?"

Raldon couldn't hide the sneer that spread over his face even if he wanted to. He was hungry and had been thinking of going to find some food, but he had no interest in listening to the self-absorbed human prattle on about Ohio and whatever else. "No."

"Suit yourself. I can bring you back something, if you like."

Raldon sighed. "No."

The human left and Raldon, now alone, slumped back onto his bed and busied himself with regret and resentment. He wasn't aware he was dozing until he heard several voices out in the hallway. He sat up and gritted his teeth. Did other species not understand courtesy?

Suddenly there was a loud thump against the wall, followed by a roar and a male voice shouting, " _What the hell are you doing_?" He shuddered in irritation: enough was enough. He stormed to the door, ripped it open, and found Tom and some Vulcan standing in the hallway. The human wore an expression of abject shock, the Vulcan, well, he was Vulcan.

The sight of a massive Klingon woman bursting through an open door, wielding a lamp and a crude smile, sent him reeling. He slammed the door shut and fumbled with the lock, ignoring Tom's pleas to let him in. He took several stumbling steps backward, never taking his eyes off the door, just in case that crazy Klingon decided to come bursting through it.

There was more yelling and more roaring, and then for a solid minute, there was silence. Raldon realized he'd been holding his breath and suddenly inhaled sharply. What had _that_ been about? Maybe Tom's incessant jabbering had set the Klingon woman off and she'd thrown a lamp at him to get him to shut up. He smirked to himself. Tom _was_ annoying.

He was about to roll back onto his bed and return to his nap when more yelling echoed in the hallway, followed by roaring, stomping, and a high-pitched voice shouting, "Korla, leave him alone! _Please_!"

He rolled his eyes. Wasn't there _anywhere_ in this awful dormitory where a man could be alone with his thoughts without inquisitive roommates or inconsiderate neighbors ruining things? His life was ruined enough already.

He stomped to the lavatory door: if there was any place he could find privacy, that had to be it.

Unfortunately, the moment he entered the long, narrow room, he found himself face to face with the same Vulcan he'd seen in the hall. He wanted to yell at the man with the pointed ears and ridiculous haircut, but even in his irritated state, Raldon understood he had just as much right to be here as he did.

He didn't want to look like he was pouting or sulking, so he made a big show of walking over to the adapted urinal and relieving himself. Terran plumbing was so woefully inadequate.

Raldon was aware that the Vulcan was standing in the corner, not watching him exactly, but not doing much of anything else either. Maybe he'd come in here to get some privacy too. Apparently even private moments demanded an audience in Starfleet. He took his time washing his hands, hoping the Vulcan would go somewhere else, but it became obvious that they were both engaged in the same game of waiting for the other person to leave.

That was when Raldon knew he was going to lose his mind if he stayed in this place. He cruised out of the bathroom, milling over his options in his head. Maybe he could call mother and ask her, no, _tell_ her, that he was coming home. This charade of kicking him out had gone on long enough.

But what should he say? He began brainstorming a message, thinking he would start with how dangerous Starfleet was and how ill-equipped they were to deal with Bolian physiology. Yes, that was good. If he somehow miraculously didn't get killed by the Romulans, he might well _starve_ because they just didn't know how to meet his unique nutritional needs. No, actually, much better to start with the fact that he lived directly across the hall from a violent Klingon who threw furniture. That wasn't even an exaggeration, it was the truth!

He paced wide circles around his room, refining his message in his head. He didn't want to lay it on too thick, but he needed his parents to understand. Starfleet just wasn't an option. Maybe he could concede to some of their old requests about holding steady employment and pitching in with more of the chores. His father would appreciate _that_ , surely.

The words of his desperate entreaty flowed through his mind and Raldon sensed he should grab his PADD and take some notes. He needed to organize his thoughts; he needed this message to be direct, concise, and desperate enough to make his parents agree that he needed to come home on the next available transport shuttle.

Just as he started to dictate his message, loud voices rang out from the hall. A throaty, masculine voice cried, "Please, just tell me your name!"

A higher-pitched female voice replied, "Look, you don't _really_ love me. It's pheromones making you say that. I'm so sorry Korla tried to strangle you. She just snapped. I don't know what's going on with her. I'm sorry." After a brief pause, the female voice added, "Stop saying that!"

Something broke inside of him. He ripped open the door to his room and screamed, " _Shut up_!"

He found a Caitian man banging on the Klingon's door. Moments later, he threw back his cat-like head and began bellowing the worst song Raldon had ever heard. If it could even be called a song.

He stepped forward and grabbed the cat's shoulder, thinking he could maybe shake some sense into him. "What is _wrong_ with you people?"

The Caitian moved so fast that Raldon had a stream of blood dribbling down his cheek before he could even mentally process the fact that he'd brandished his claws and scratched him. He'd _scratched_ him. He'd _assaulted_ him.

He looked around madly, and seeing a hole in the opposite wall and broken bits of furniture littering the floor, Raldon decided he's seen enough. "That's it. I'm calling security!" He spit at the Caitian's hairy feet for good measure, adding, "This is ridiculous. This is madness."

He didn't know where the security office was, but he didn't care. He was halfway down the hall when he suddenly had an idea. Why tell his parents about the terrible state of things when he could _show_ them? He returned to his room, grabbed his PADD from his bed, and began recording.

"Mother, father, I have been on Earth for six hours and this is the state of my living conditions," he announced, waving the PADD's camera around to display the hole the Klingon had punched in the wall.

He flipped the camera around to the oblivious Caitian and added, "And this person is trying to break into someone's room. There are dangerous people here."

He passed an open door and noticing smoke wafting out of it, crept inside to find black curls wafting from a bowl of herbs on a table by the wall. It smelled like his grandmother's spice cake. He drifted into homesickness at the thought, until something ran over his foot and he saw it was some kind of rat. He screamed but managed to compose himself and point his PADD's camera to the floor and say, "And there's a rodent infestation in my dormitory! They spread _disease_ , mother."

He sighed, inhaling more of the smoke than he'd intended. He coughed a little cough and cleared his throat. It was _very_ smoky in here, but it _did_ smell very good.

He stood there, taking deep breaths and remembering the festival days when he would wait in his grandmother's kitchen for her spice cake to come hot from the oven. Suddenly he was hungry. He opened his eyes and looked around. His head felt very light, but his soul felt lighter. He wanted to eat. He wanted to do cartwheels. He wanted to hug his grandmother. Too bad she was dead. _Too bad_.

A random giggle escaped his lips and he looked back at the PADD's camera and grinned. "Hi, mommy!"

He'd been making a video message for his parents but somehow, it no longer seemed important. He pirouetted on the ball of his left foot and allowed himself to fall down onto the nearest bed. The longer he stared at the textured ceiling, the more beautiful it became. The patterns started moving and morphing into different shapes and figures. So soothing.

Why had he been so angry earlier? Life wasn't really that serious. In fact, it was pretty damn funny, the more he thought about it. Another giggle, louder and more pronounced, erupted from him. He slapped his hand over his mouth and found himself laughing out loud.

Hands were _so_ funny. How had he never realized it before? He turned his hand over, analyzing the workings of his finger joints. Hands… funny, _funny_ hands.

"Excuse me, do you know what's going on here? What's all this smoke?" Raldon cocked an eye open at the sound of the saccharine voice coming from the other end of the room.

Stepping through the haze of smoke was a slender figure with a face the shape of a heart and hair the color of moonlight splayed between a beautiful set of antennae. Raldon sat up and gazed at the Andorian woman in the doorway.

"You're so blue!" he cried, falling over into a fit of giggles.

"I don't know if you noticed, but you are too," she grumbled.

"No, no, you don't understand!" Raldon insisted, falling out of the bed and crawling toward her on his hands and knees. He stopped about half a meter away from her, leaned back on his knees, and lifted his hands like a supplicant in worship.

"What don't I understand?" the woman asked with a definite tone of annoyance, coughing and trying to wave the smoke away from her face.

"Your skin—it's _blue_!"

The woman's dark eyes narrowed and she sneezed. "I don't know about you, but my head is buzzing."

"Isn't it delicious?" Raldon asked, slapping the woman's knees with his hands.

She didn't answer right away, but when she did, she mumbled, "Yeah, I guess it is, isn't it?" They both fell into a fit of giggles.

* * *

 **Tom's Story**

Tom wondered if it was safe to go back up to the third floor. It had been half an hour since that Klingon woman had thrown the lamp at him. His initial instinct was to go get help from security, but he didn't want to get anyone in trouble, not on the very first day. His sister Lucy used to beat him up for tattling.

He watched other students come and go but none of them noticed the pale, thin boy sitting on the bench by the turbolift, or if they did, they didn't seem to care. Tom was used to being invisible.

He saw a group of people coming toward him and decided there was no time like the present and besides, he wanted to finish unpacking his things. He stood, feeling the crumbled crackers he'd grabbed from the dining hall for his new friend Raldon swish around in his cargo pocket. They'd gotten a little smashed up when he'd tripped over his feet trying to get away from the Klingon, but he was sure they were still good. He didn't want his new friend going hungry.

He chewed his fingernail and sat back down again. Was he coming on too strong with his new Bolian roommate? He so wanted to make a good impression. He had never had many friends, and certainly no alien friends where he grew up in Corning, Ohio. Part of what had drawn him to Starfleet was the idea of camaraderie and unity.

He didn't care much about space exploration—the idea of being on a starship someday honestly scared him a little—but he did want to make some friends. His Uncle Jake had always talked about all the buddies he'd made during his years in Starfleet and had so many stories about landing parties and staying up all night repairing warp engines and long stretches with no communication back to Earth. All he'd had out in space was his fellow crewmembers and he swore those kinds of friendships couldn't be found anywhere else.

Tom rose to his feet and sat down again. The group of people, two human women and three human men, passed him by. He chewed harder on his thumbnail. One of the women, a tall brunette with honey colored skin threw her head back and laughed and when her eyes fell on Tom, he could swear his heart was going to stop. Was she laughing at him? It wouldn't be the first time a pretty girl had laughed at him. He swallowed hard and started chewing on the nail of his index finger.

The doors slid open moments later and they boarded. Tom exhaled a quick breath, summoned all his courage, and trotted toward the turbolift. "Hey, can you hold-" The inner doors closed in his face, followed by the outer doors and a rush of sound as the lift shot upwards.

 _"_ _...the turbolift_ ," Tom finished softly, even though no one could hear.

It took another minute for the lift to come back down and when he emerged on the third floor, he was greeted by Raldon and an Andorian woman. They were sitting on the floor with their backs against the wall, feet splayed out in front of them and petting some kind of rat with long hair on its ears. Wisps of smoke wafted through the hallway, smelling of stale socks. At the other end of the hall, a cat-like man had his hands on his chest and was singing some kind of unintelligible song.

"Hi, Tom!" Raldon cooed, sitting up as Tom stepped off the turbolift. "Oh, Nek'than, you _have_ to meet my friend, Tom."

Tom raised an eyebrow and glanced at the Andorian. "Hi, Tom!" she cackled.

Raldon had just called him his friend and they were both so utterly cheerful it was contagious, which sent a grin spreading over Tom's face. "Nice to meet you," he said, nodding to the woman.

"Tom is…" Raldon paused as he turned to the Andorian, "Tom is just the _best_. Say Tom, do you have any food?"

"I do, actually," he replied, reaching into his pocket for the crackers. "I thought you might be hungry and the dining hall was about to close. I'm sorry they got a little broken, but I-"

" _Shush_!" Raldon cried, leaping to his feet and nearly falling over. "This is a joyous occasion! Look, Nek'than, he brought us food! Tom brought us food!"

Raldon seized the crackers from his hand and stuffed half of them in his mouth. Bits and pieces fell on the floor, and a second rodent emerged from an open door and began nibbling at the crumbs. "Crackers for everyone!" Raldon exclaimed, waving the plastic package around and sending more cracker crumbs to the floor.

"Thanks, Tom!" Nek'than squealed. "Tom is the best!"

He looked from Raldon to Nek'than and back again. The whites of their eyes were stained deep purple and Nek'than was actually drooling. Had they gone insane?

Before he could ask what was going on and where the smoke was coming from, Raldon pulled him into a tight hug. "You're the best, Tom."

"Yeah, you keep saying that," he replied, pulling away.

"Tom, do you want to know a secret?" Nek'than blurted, covering the bottom half of her face with her hands.

"Uh, _sure_?"

"You can't tell anyone!" she replied, her eyes growing wide.

"Yeah, sure, I won't."

She motioned for him to lean in close, and when his face was only about ten centimeters from hers, she whispered loudly, "I'm blue."

Tom straightened his back and stared at her, just as she started laughing maniacally. "Um, you're Andorian. Aren't Andorians supposed to be blue?"

She held a finger to her lips, barely stifling a laugh. " _Shhhhhhh_!"

Raldon threw his head back and bellowed a deep laugh, then slumped back to the floor and curled into a fetal position. He started petting the long-eared rat that was eating the bits of cracker and Nek'than flopped onto her back beside him.

Tom glanced at the smoke, which was coming from room 304. It smelled _awful_. He coughed and waved his arms, trying to disperse the hazy cloud that was drifting into the hall. The fire alarms would probably go off any minute; it was a wonder they hadn't already.

He scanned the walls, looking for the fire alarm and was shocked to find it had been removed. All that remained were a handful of flashing lights and crumbling drywall. Who would have taken it out? Didn't they know how dangerous that was?

A lump rose in his throat as he looked from the smoke to the hole in the wall where the fire alarm had been. He stepped over Raldon and Nek'than, who were rolling around and laughing about crackers, and made his way into room 304. The smoke was so thick it burned his eyes and all of it seemed to be coming from some kind of bowl on a nearby table.

He hurried to the bathroom to get some water and put it out, but was startled to find a woman with scaly purple skin and vibrant blue eyes crouched on the counter examining the light bulbs like she thought they were on the verge of exploding.

"Um, who are you?" he stammered, rubbing his eyes. "I'm not sure you're supposed to be in here."

She turned her head to regard him and leapt from the counter with feline grace. At her full height, she was a full head taller than Tom and very elegant. She was Cardassian and extremely impressive.

"Who sent you?" she barked.

"I- I came from the room in there. Someone's burning something and I need to put it out. By the way, do you know who pulled the fire alarm off the wall, I-"

Her eyes narrowed and she raised a finger to her lips. "They'll hear you. They hear everything. They're always listening."

Tom shifted his weight and looked around. "Um… _who_?"

"You're one of them, aren't you?" she hissed.

"What? _No_ , at least, I don't think so. Who are you talking about?"

Tom wasn't exactly sure what happened next. He must have lost consciousness, but he couldn't say how. When he came to, his head was throbbing, his limbs were stiff and cramped, and it was pitch black. He was lying in the fetal position on a very hard floor and when he extended his arm outward, realized he was locked in some kind of box.

"Hello?" he cried, trying to keep his panic down.

There was only silence. " _Hello_?"


	5. Resentment and Trust Issues in Room 303

**Psychiatric release report  
Report No. 2265-50-10-536  
Starfleet Academy Department of Xenopsychiatry and Integrated Behavioral Science  
Stardate 2265.50  
Time 0957 hours  
Lieutenant Sarah Lockhart**

 _The patient, a Nausicaan-human hybrid, is lucid and cooperative and has displayed no violent behavior since being admitted to the department. His vital signs appear normal and he is cheerful, polite, and willing to follow all instructions given. He was referred to our department following a fire in J Dormitory where witnesses claim he was attempting to cause serious bodily harm to a Klingon female on his floor._

 _It has been previously established that the fire was a result of burning kra'shaa, a Caitian substance known to have mild sedative and hallucinatory effects on Caitians. Little is known about how this compound interacts with Nausicaan neurochemistry and due to Mr. Jones' hybrid physiology, it would be impossible to predict how it may have affected him. Additionally, it has also been documented that high levels of lysergic triethylamide (LTA), the primary Orion pheromone responsible for both sexual and fight-or-flight responses, was also present on the third floor of J Dormitory. Its effects on Mr. Jones' biochemistry are also unknown._

 _Mr. Jones does not report any memory loss or confusion during his homicidal episode but cannot articulate what may have led to his actions. According to his account, which appears to corroborate the sworn statements given to Commander Mulcahy, he was in his room with his roommate and reports suddenly feeling agitated, which caused him to leave the room and enter the hallway, where he found the Klingon female smashing a desk against the wall..._

 **Nek'than's Story**

Nek'than's chin quivered but she quickly bit her lip, put on her best smile, and held up her hand to the rays of light streaming in through the window to observe her handiwork. It looked so much better when Sheka did it, but that was probably because Sheka had decades of experience in cosmetology and this was the first time in her life Nek'than had ever attempted to stain her own fingernails.

Doing her right hand hadn't _seemed_ all that hard, but Nek'than was left-handed. Now that her right hand was in charge of staining the left, it was a disaster. How was _anyone_ supposed to conjure up sufficient fine motor skills to stain the fingernails of their dominant hand? Her lips twisted into a small pout. It looked sloppy and amateurish and she was instantly convinced it would be better to have natural nails than badly stained ones, even if unstained nails were for people who worked with their hands.

She turned her hand over to observe her palm and tried to imagine a row of callouses. Her pout became a sneer of wonder. She had accepted a position in Starfleet as a public relations officer—her first job!—and surely she would never be asked to do manual labor. What if she was asked to—she racked her brain and tried to think of a manual labor task and the only thing that came to mind was making bricks—fine, what if she was asked to make bricks?

What if some important person came up to her and told her to make a brick? What would be more embarrassing, being _beneath_ someone and being ordered to make a brick or being forced to admit she didn't know how? Or there was always a third option, which was being forced to admit she couldn't think of any other menial jobs besides brick making. Cleaning things, maybe? Washing floors?

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This was her life now. Lots of people worked. It was like an adventure or a new experience. She could pretend to be an actress playing a part—beautiful socialite takes on Starfleet! Those affirmations had been good enough on the shuttle ride here, but now that she was sitting on a lumpy bed in a room barely half the size of her old closet, she was wallowing in fear. She didn't know how to do any of this.

"That stuff smells," murmured the girl sitting on the other bed.

Nek'than's first ever roommate, how could she forget? Her father's series of terrible business decisions had not only forced his daughter to get a job, but also apparently a roommate. She had tried every trick she knew to get the billeting officer to see things her way, but he had refused to budge. No private room for Nek'than, even if she was the only daughter of Shurnal Mila, a direct descendant of Andoria's last true king.

"I think it smells quite nice," she informed the sulking Cardassian girl, bristling at the insinuation that she shouldn't be allowed to stain her own nails in her own room. Then again, she was more likely to get her way by making peace instead of war, so she altered the pitch of her voice and added, "Would you like me to stain your nails? I imagine this would be a lovely color with your complexion."

"I've never painted my fingernails and I don't plan to start now."

Nek'than's eyes scanned the surly Cardassian girl from head to toe. She had an almost iridescent bluish purple skin tone that would have been stunning, if she were willing to use a regimen that would minimize her pores. Had this girl ever even heard of moisturizer?

"I see the way you're looking at me," the girl sneered.

"I was actually thinking you had the most beautiful-"

"No you _weren't_. I've known girls like you my whole life. You're all just a bunch of shallow, self-obsessed trolls."

"You don't even _know_ me," Nek'than spat, ready to defend herself rather than finish complementing the Cardassian's glossy black hair. Yes, she'd been raised with money and liked to make herself look nice, but that didn't mean she was shallow or self-obsessed.

Suddenly a loud crash hit the wall, followed by someone screaming, " _What the hell are you doing_?" The hostility and resentment between Nek'than and the Cardassian was immediately forgotten in favor of staring at the door in equal parts fear and curiosity.

Her voice waivered. "Is someone _throwing_ things?"

"You're a clever one," the Cardassian quipped, striding toward the door and peeking her head out.

"Are you _crazy_?" Nek'than hissed, inching in her roommate's direction. She was halfway there when the Cardassian's head jerked back into the room and she slammed the door, just before another object struck the wall.

"What's going on?"

"There's a Klingon throwing things at a Vulcan."

"Why?"

"Don't you know anything about Klingons? It's how they date. She throws things at him and he tries to woo her with songs and poetry."

"You're joking."

The Cardassian shrugged and cracked the door open once again. "I didn't invent their culture."

"Well, but- but what are we going to _do_?"

"I don't care what _you_ do," the Cardassian replied. "But I'm going to go find somewhere more quiet."

In the blink of an eye, she slipped through the tiny crack in the door and was gone, leaving Nek'than to wonder if this whole thing was just some elaborate delusion. Insanity was starting to sound like the only sane explanation for how Nek'than, heiress to a dilithium processing fortune, had come to be in Starfleet and sharing a room with a Cardassian while a Klingon attempted to court a Vulcan in the hallway.

She slumped back on her bed and gazed longingly at her nails. Why had her father had to go and make such a mess of the business? Her antennae drooped as she recalled the events of three months ago, when she'd come home from university to plan her graduation party and her mother had sat her down and told her there would be no more parties, at least not ones featuring seating charts and hired entertainers and custom dresses and thousands of hand-crafted treats.

Instead of celebrating her graduation with the biggest party since her passage into adulthood, she'd watched as the movers had packed up all their belongings and unceremoniously deposited them in a tiny house in the Western suburbs. Despite conventional economic wisdom, apparently it _was_ possible to lose money in dilithium mines, as her father had proven.

Not that his terrible business decisions had made them utterly starving and homeless: Andoria had finally gotten rid of those things almost half a century ago. They still had some assets left and her father had taken some kind of consulting job at a firm run by a former subordinate. They had gotten through it and Nek'than had convinced herself this was just a passing phase in her life and he would find a way to reclaim his lost business.

Yes, things had been fine until last month, when her father had found out how much she'd spent on her new seasonal wardrobe. Growing up with money of a quantity that bordered on obscene had done little to teach Nek'than how much anything actually cost. If she liked something, she bought it, whether it was worth almost nothing or the annual salary of the average Andorian, which was an argument she'd used countless times to defend against charges of snobbery. Something didn't _have_ to be expensive to be nice.

Yet apparently those four dresses, six blouses, and eight pairs of shoes had cost more than what her father now made in half a year and he'd cancelled all her accounts. It had caused a very bitter row full of tears many hurtful words on both sides. According to her father, she was a spoiled, silly brat who only cared about shoes and according to her, he was an inept and reckless huckster who managed to ruin a dilithium mining company, an impressive feat considering the whole of the Federation ran on the stuff.

That was when he told her she had a month to move out of his house. Not our house or this house, his exact words had been "my house." And it was just a house: that tiny little three bedroom closet had never been any kind of home to her. Nek'than had cried herself to sleep in her mother's arms and the next morning, she visited an employment agency for the first time in her life.

At first she had assumed finding work would be easy. She had a university degree in fashion and marketing—she had once toyed with the idea of designing her own clothing line—but she'd never really taken school seriously. Why would she? Higher education was just something to do after secondary school to keep her father happy and she had made many wonderful friends during her years there. Of course, they were friends who hadn't responded to a single request to get together since everyone found out that her father had bankrupted the family business.

But getting a job required skills and experience, and few people were interested in hiring someone to plan their parties or redesign their home interiors who had no _professional_ experience. After two weeks of searching and being offered jobs hostessing at nightclubs or waiting tables, Nek'than had begun to panic.

She had been standing in line for the shuttle to take her back to her suburb when a handsome man in a Starfleet uniform had taken a seat next to hers. After some casual flirting, he revealed himself to be home on Andoria for temporary recruiting duty and asked if she knew anyone who would be interested in joining Starfleet.

She thought about it for no more than fifteen seconds before she admitted she was. Being a Starfleet officer sounded worlds better than any of the wretched, menial service jobs she'd been offered, and besides, Starfleet was a respectable organization. "My daughter is in Starfleet," was something her mother could tell people with pride. Two days later, she was on a transport ship bound for Earth and the rest was history.

Shouting right outside her door made her open her eyes and realize she'd been dozing.

" _Please, just tell me your name_!" yelled a masculine voice.

Someone, probably female, replied, " _Look, you don't_ _really_ _love me. It's pheromones making you say that. I'm so sorry Korla tried to strangle you. She just snapped. I don't know what's going on with her. I'm sorry_."

Nek'than sat up in horror. Someone was about to be _strangled_ outside her door?

There was more yelling but then a third person, a man, shouted, " _Shut up_!" Then the singing began, or at least, it sounded like it was _supposed_ to be singing.

For a brief moment, Nek'than found herself wishing she'd just agreed to work at that sleazy club in downtown rather than submit herself to this. She slid off her bed and cracked the door open just enough to see a Bolian yelling at some Caitian guy. She shut the door as quietly as she could manage and wondered if she should call the police. Who were the police on Terra, or did Starfleet have their own? She hated not knowing how things worked.

A minute passed, then two, and then she caught the faintest whiff of smoke. She inhaled several deep breaths to be sure, but there was no question—something somewhere was burning. Torn between her terror of leaving her room and facing all those violent people or burning to death on the third floor, Nek'than found the courage to step out into the hallway.

The Caitian was still howling at the door at the opposite end of the hall but other than that, the corridor was empty. The door to the room directly across from hers was open and had trails of smoke drifting out of it. Nek'than nervously ventured toward the threshold and discovered the Bolian man she'd seen several minutes ago, giggling and talking to someone on his PADD.

"Mommy, did you know hands are funny?" he sighed.

Nek'than almost felt the urge to hold her breath over the pungent, cloying smell of the smoke in the air, which she now clearly saw was coming from some kind of dish. "Excuse me, do you know what's going on here? What's all this smoke?"

The Bolian man sat up, allowed his mouth to drift open, then shouted, "You're so blue!" before doubling over in laughter.

Was he insane? Had this whole dormitory gone mad? "I don't know if you noticed, but you are too."

She waved her hands to clear the smoke but it was no use. It was almost too much to bear and was starting to give her a headache.

"No, no, you don't understand!" the man cried, crawling toward her on his hands and knees.

Nek'than wasn't really listening; all she could think about was the growing sensation that she was weightless and floating. "What don't I understand?" she barked.

"Your skin—it's _blue_!" he laughed.

It suddenly occurred to her that she couldn't feel her hands. She couldn't feel _anything_ for that matter. "I don't know about you, but my head is buzzing."

"Isn't it delicious?" the Bolian asked, slapping his hands on her knees and jiggling her kneecaps.

She blinked slowly several times. "Yeah, I guess it is, isn't it?"

They both started to laugh and soon were laughing so hard they were curled up on the floor.

"Oh, I have an idea!" the Bolian shouted.

"Oh! Please tell me! _Please_?"

"We should go back to my room. Tom is there. He's just the best."

"What's a Tom?"

The Bolian shrieked with laughter and Nek'than did too. For the first time in months, she felt incredible.

* * *

 **Nelana's Story**

Nelana paused in the hallway and closed her eyes. Of course she'd ended up with some self-absorbed, airheaded twit as a roommate. And why _wouldn't_ she? The universe clearly hated her. She stood there for several minutes until the Klingon emerged from Room 301 with an Orion sporting wild red hair hot on her heels. They stopped at the door directly opposite hers and the Klingon began beating on it wildly.

They never even noticed she was there and that was fine by Nelana. She stepped off at a brisk but casual pace toward the opposite end of the hallway. She was about to slink down the stairs and out of the building to wherever she needed to go to tell Starfleet they could kiss her ass and she would be leaving now, thank you very much, but on her way to the stairwell, a sweet, unfamiliar scent tickled her nose.

She sneezed and rubbed her nostrils. It was very fragrant, whatever it was, not to mention very relaxing. She followed her nose into Room 301, where the Klingon and Orion had just emerged from, but could find nothing that would explain the source of the smell. There was a sour flavor clinging to the air and a bunch of dead eel-like creatures sitting in the middle of a puddle of pinkish liquid, but that was it.

Nelana hovered in the threshold and allowed her eyes to rest on the Klingon bat'leth hanging above the bed by the window. The mattress had been turned over, revealing the hard frame underneath. Who in their right mind had thought admitting a Klingon to Starfleet Academy was a good idea? She stole a quick glance down at the iridescent purple scales of her hands and pulled her long sleeves down further. Probably the same idiot who had admitted a Cardassian.

Not that she was fully Cardassian. Her father, Richard Kim, had been human, and his smooth human features were woven into Nelana's face in a way that made her quite intermediate between human and Cardassian and universally decried by both species as hideously ugly. Even her mother had said so, often in a loving way when she'd brushed Nelana's lovely black hair before bed.

For the first eight years of her life growing up on Cardassia, Nelana hadn't really understood why she looked so different from her peers. She was already bullied mercilessly for having no father, but having alien features had been the most unforgiveable crime. Then when her mother had suddenly disappeared and she was taken into state custody, the cruel children's warden had finally confirmed what all the other children had always said about her: she was a bastard half-breed.

She hadn't really been old enough to understand it at the time, but after a two month stay in the state children's home, some people in Starfleet uniforms had come and collected her. She was introduced to Steve, her uncle, and from then on, it had been Nelana and Steve in a two bedroom apartment in Wichita, Kansas.

No one had ever explicitly told her how she'd come to exist in the first place, but she was able to piece her own version of it together from secondhand information. Apparently Richard Kim had met her mother in a Klingon prison after both had been arrested for spying for their respective governments. A few sexual trysts on Rura Penthe and an elaborate escape attempt later, her mother had ended up back on Cardassia with Nelana in her belly and a dead lover on the Klingon ice planet. It was hardly the stuff of romance.

Steve was nice enough, but it was clear raising a half-Cardassian niece had never been part of his life plan. He tried to make life as normal as possible, but what was normal, anyway? Wichita was a big city but home to very few aliens, and the aliens who did live there—the occasional Vulcan or Tellarite—came from planets that were friendly to the Federation.

School had always been the hardest. Spoonhead. Lizard girl. Every known possible synonym for freak, though when creativity was lacking, freak was also suitable. What had made matters worse for Nelana was she'd given her primary instruction under a Cardassian education system, which was far different than anything seen on Terra and she struggled the first few years to the point where she was placed in remedial classes. That had earned her the additional nickname of stupid and all its synonyms as well.

Worse still was she barely knew any Federation Standard when she'd first arrived and the universal translator she'd been given made her speech stilted and occasionally mistranslated things to an embarrassing degree. Fitting into a whole new life at the tender age of nine would have been hard enough for anyone, but Nelana had found it impossible, even though she couldn't claim she'd fit in on Cardassia. The universe wasn't equipped to handle people like her, apparently, and so she had been forced to live on the fringes.

Nelana was far from the only kid who had been bullied in school, but the one thing that she had going for her was her imposing size and physical strength, relative to humans of course. Where some of the weaker outcasts at school might be stuffed into recyclers or shoved out of the lunch line, no one had ever dared lay a finger on her since the fourth grade, when a boy had tried to kiss her on a dare and she'd coolly grabbed him by the wrist and snapped his arm. It had hardly taken any effort at all. After that, she had also been branded things like psycho and _dangerous_ freak, rather than simply freak.

There were all kinds of ways to hurt people that didn't involve physical pain though, and her schoolmates were surprisingly creative. Girls were the worst. It was often little things that most adults shrugged off as harmless jokes, like signing her up for school plays or stealing her clothes in the locker room or leaving plastic toy lizards in her seat with notes that said, " _Go to spring formal with me_?"

About halfway through high school, things began to change. Mysterious accidents began to befall her tormenters, not that Nelana had _anything_ to do with it, of course. It had been a shame that Sarah Glazer and all of her vicious friends had gotten drunk at Sean Peterson's party and woken up with shaved heads and merely a coincidence that the next morning, her Uncle Steve found several blonde hairs in his clippers.

By the time she was ready to graduate, people mostly avoided her and she was certainly happy to avoid them. Then on her school graduation day, she and her Uncle Steve were approached by Lieutenant Commander Xhia in the parking lot outside the event center where Nelana had just been forced to wear a ridiculous robe over a dress and march across a stage to receive a piece of paper for enduring social torture and learning a few things for the past ten years.

As she would discover, Commander Xhia was a Starfleet Special Operations recruiting officer who had all the time in the world to hang out with Nelana and talk about her future plans. Apparently the Federation was worried about rapid Cardassian expansion and was eager to recruit anyone with knowledge of the language and culture.

Nelana wasn't stupid. Commander Xhia, who was half-Suliban, half-Xyrillian and had been raised in Quebec after his parents had been killed in some kind of civil war, was part of the sales pitch. He was there to advertise that Starfleet was a place of diversity and inclusivity, and even though Nelana didn't really buy it, she didn't really have any better options, so now here she was: out of place once again and stuck with a singular, physical embodiment of everyone who had ever harassed her as a roommate.

She gazed at the bat'leth on the wall again and suddenly realized her heart was racing. There was a Klingon here. That didn't make any sense. Was this part of some bigger plot? She sniffed the air, _irritated_ to the bone by whatever that deliciously sweet smell wafting through the air was. Someone was watching her, she could _feel_ it.

She turned in a circle and spied a circular device on the wall. Her breath caught in her throat: the label may have said "Integrated Smoke and Fire Detector" but anyone who was watching wouldn't broadcast their actions. She saw a short, curved knife modeled in the Klingon fashion in the middle of the floor of 301 and used it to pull the cover off the smoke detector. There was no question this was a listening device, but before she could rip it from the wall, she heard yelling from the other end of the hallway. She quickly retreated into the stairwell and peeked her head through the glass window to observe the scene.

The Orion woman was coming back down the hall, only this time, she was trailed by a Caitian man begging her to come back. " _Please, just tell me your name_!"

She whipped around to face him and proclaimed, " _Look, you don't_ _really_ _love me. It's pheromones making you say that. I'm so sorry Korla tried to strangle you. She just snapped. I don't know what's going on with her. I'm sorry_."

The sweet smell was overpowering now and made her want to claw her nose off. Nelana sank down to the floor and clutched the stolen Klingon blade to her chest. The Caitian man was attempting to assassinate the Orion, but that was none of Nelana's business: she had to look out for herself now.

She glanced up and saw the automatic door sensor in the stairwell and gasped. That would also be an ideal place to disguise a listening device. She stood on the tips of her toes and immediately began disassembling it with the Klingon knife while on the other side of the hallway, the cat-man attempted to gain entry to the Orion's room to murder her.

Twenty minutes later, the door sensor, along with the light fixtures and emergency call box lay in pieces on the floor. Someone was watching her and here was the proof. Nelana began to pace back and forth, frantic that she would "disappear" like her mother had.

There was a sudden thump against the door and then a set of fingers appeared in the doorjamb and forced it open. A Xyrillian woman tried to squeeze through, but Nelana was ready for an assassination attempt.

"Hey, do you know what's going on?" the Xyrillian woman asked, slightly out of breath.

"I know why you've come," Nelana said, brandishing the knife. "Back away now."

The Xyrillian woman's eyes grew wide and were instantly trained on the knife. "Yes, um, that's- I can do that. Sorry for bothering you."

The Xyrillian was gone as quickly as she had appeared, but Nelana was now on a mission. She needed to fortify her position and wait for the inevitable attack. They would probably kill her, but she would not go down without a fight.

She slinked back into the hallway, ignoring her Andorian roommate and the Bolian laughing in the middle of the floor—they were blue and blue things were not dangerous—and began to slowly disable all the electronic and duotronic devices in the hallway, then moved on to her room and the bathroom, carefully avoiding contact with all individuals.

In the male bathroom on the other side of the hall, she found a set of candles in the shower, two that had been turned over but one that was still burning. Something terrible had happened here. She leapt onto the counter and began checking the light fixtures for spyware and was nearly done when someone behind her asked, "Um, who are you? I'm not sure you're supposed to be in here."

Nelana whipped her head around to see a small human, more boy than man. She hopped from the counter and studied him. He almost seemed trustworthy, but she couldn't be too careful. "Who sent you?"

"I- I came from the room in there. Someone's burning something and I need to put it out. By the way, do you know who pulled the fire alarm off the wall, I-"

"They'll hear you," she interrupted, drawing her finger to her lips. "They hear everything. They're always listening."

"Um… _who_?" He didn't seem like a spy, but that was probably exactly what they _wanted_ her to think.

"You're one of them, aren't you?" she asked, prepared to pull the ceremonial Klingon blade tucked into the small of her back and end the spy's life.

"What? _No_ , at least, I don't think so. Who are you talking about?"

Nelana had never killed anyone before and she hesitated now. He seemed so innocent, yet she could not bring herself to trust him. So she did the only thing that made sense under the circumstances: she quickly knocked him out, dragged his body back to her room, and stuffed him in her foot locker to interrogate him later. It was the only way.


End file.
